Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/48

 like a whirling dervish, opening and closing draughts, slamming doors and lids, jamming in more fuel and striking more matches, but all to no purpose. Each and every effort ended in smoke. Bert, having returned to earth, stood gasping in the door.

“I thought you hadn’t fired her; no smoke at all above.”

“You didn’t expect this blamed old sarcophagus to smoke at both ends, did you?” And then the floodgates of wrath opened. His listeners will never again doubt the existence of the emotional Mr. Bowser. There was absolutely no draught. It was found the projecting pipe aloft was not of sufficient height; for it must be substituted one of those tall smokestacks, and there was no hope of fire until this could be done. This discovery would not have meant much in the old home, where the desired stack could have been ordered from a hardware store and put in place within the hour; but here it meant a drive of forty miles to and from the little town we had left, at a season of the year when roads were at their worst.

It was decided that the trip should be made the following day, there being no advantage in postponement, with ravenous appetites calling for bread where no bread could be had. We were told that the coming trip was the only one that would be made until the next Spring, and were advised to keep that fact before us in the making up of our memoranda,—a mighty